4810592a@news.povray.org...
>  You claim that a person's history consists of his ancestors' history
> besides his own life. I disagree. Why should it have any effect on your
> actions what your ancestors did or didn't do? Why should your own
> ancestors' actions have more effect on yours than the actions of someone
> else's ancestors?

Everybody is born with some inheritance in the practical form of economic 
capital and in the figurative form of social and cultural capital (*). This 
capital can be positive (wealth, good networks, education) or negative 
(poverty, bad networks, illiteracy) and affects directly your history, 
present and future. So while your history does technically start when you're 
born, it is shaped (positively or negatively) but what came before, and so 
are your actions, like it or not.

It's possible to unclaim some of the assets you were born with (**), but 
most of the time you have to live with them (***) and act accordingly.

G.

(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital

(**) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_%28sociology%29

(***) http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf
and lolcats http://elusis.livejournal.com/1744514.html (only if you read the 
above)

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